'Nikita' Recap: 'Reunion'

Niita and Amanda wake up in another random building, each of them blaming the other for the present situation, and Krieg only interested in recovering Stefan. Nikita finally convinces Krieg to just get Ari on the phone already, and Michael rushes to wake up the former Gogol spy, but can't do it before Krieg terminates the call. Needless to say, he blames this on Owen's earlier attack.

Just as Krieg starts bringing out the implements of potential torture, he gets a phone call from Alex, who pretends that she has Stefan. He agrees to meet her for a potential trade, leaving Amanda and Nikita to their own devices. Nikita enlists Amanda's help to start a fire, hoping to draw some outside attention. Figuring them for dead, Amanda admits to daddy issues just before firefighters rescue both women from the burning building. While Amanda slips away, Nikita steals an ambulance.

Michael speaks with a displeased Ari to get Anatoly's phone number, sending Alex on a chase to find him, presumably find Stefan, and make the trade with Krieg in time. While Krieg and Alex aim their guns at each other, Krieg gets a phone call from Ari telling him to work with Alex to find Stefan. "Enough nonsense," the German says. "Let's get the boy back, yes?" And they do, with the cops breaking up a shootout that ends with Alex arrested and Krieg wounded. As Nikita is patching him up, he declares that Stefan should decide where he goes next, while Ari - listening into their conversation - decides not to say goodbye to his son.

Things don't go so well for other people. Owen - who's found himself in a holding cell of his own - is further upset when Michael informs him that he's no longer an active duty agent. And Alex is stunned when the person who comes to break her out of police custody is not Nikita, but Amanda. "Let's see how well she taught you," is the quip.

"Reunion" has an interesting premise, picking up perfectly from the end of "With Fire," but it wastes the idea on a script that contains numerous eyebrow-raising moments if not outright plot holes. As Krieg actually points out in the third act, Nikita attacked him when he was trying to protect his charge; even if we believe her when she says he went after her first, surely she could have disabled him rather than knocked him unconscious. Krieg comes off as a perfectly reasonable character, so there's nothing that says Nikita and Alex couldn't have explained the situation and ended up working with him to defeat Amanda. Of course, if they did, there would only be half an episode, so perhaps it's a case of dramatic license overruling logic.

Even so, there are other things that don't quite ring true. Amanda and Nikita conveniently running out of ammunition at the exact same time? Amanda calling the authorities as her go-to move for the second time? Nikita taking her time - one could even say gloating - as she strides over to a fallen Amanda, giving Amanda plenty of time to take her legs out from under her with a nearby chair? Nikita is usually pretty good about having all its ducks in a row, but this is not one of those episodes.

Yet it's not a total loss, either. The scenes between Owen and Ari are full of delicious tension, and even though one can argue that they're not entirely plausible either, Devon Sawa is electric as all of Owen's frustration and desperation pours out. His energy is well balanced out by Peter Outerbridge, whose Ari remains as calm and unimpressed by everyone else's issues as ever. It's two strong actors in one small space, and that's a delight to watch. Given that there's still much to learn about Owen's past, let's hope that there are more scenes between them in the future.

With Alex now missing, it's a safe bet that Sean will be a major player next week - but what else will happen? Nikita hasn't seemed to have gotten to its endgame for season three yet, and there are plenty of ways the storyline could go from here. Let's see if the show gets back to its old ways next week.